Read Ebook: The Real Dope by Lardner Ring

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Ebook has 451 lines and 54530 words, and 10 pages

Last night we was all out on deck in the dark talking about this and that and one of the boys I was standing along side of him made the remark that we had been out nine days and he didn't see no France yet or no signs of getting there so I said no wonder when we had such a he--ll of a censor ship and some other guy heard me say it so he said I better not talk like that but I didn't mean it like that but only how slow it was.

Well we are getting along O. K. with the French lessons and Bob Lee told me last night that he run across one of the two French officers that's on the ship and he thought he would try some of his French on him so he said something about it being a nice day in French and the Frenchman was tickled to death and smiled and bowed at him and I guess I will try it out on them the next time I see them.

Well Al that shows we been learning something when the Frenchmans themself know what we are talking about and I and Lee will have the laugh on the rest of the boys when we get there that is if we do get there but for some reason another I have got a hunch that we won't never see France and I can't explain why but once in a while a man gets a hunch and a lot of times they are generally always right.

Your pal, JACK.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I was just out on deck with Lee and Sargent Bishop and Bishop is a sargent in our Co. and he said he had just came from Capt. Seeley and Capt. Seeley told him to tell all the N. C. O. officers like sargents and corporals that if a sub got us we was to leave the privates get into the boats first before we got in and we wasn't to get into our boats till all the privates was safe in the boats because we would probably be cooler and not get all excited like the privates. So you see Al if something does happen us birds will have to take things in hand you might say and we will have to stick on the job and not think about ourselfs till everybody else is taken care of.

Well Lee said that Doran one of the sailors told him something on the quiet that didn't never get into the newspapers and that was about one of the trips that come off in December and it seems like a whole fleet of subs got on to it that some transports was comeing so they layed for them and they shot a periscope at one of the transports and hit it square in the middle and it begun to sink right away and it looked like they wouldn't nobody get into the boats but the sargents and corporals was as cool as if nothing was comeing off and they quieted the soldiers down and finely got them into the boats and the N. C. O. officers was so cool and done so well that when Gen. Pershing heard about it he made this rule about the N. C. O. officer always waiting till the last so they could kind of handle things. But Doran also told Lee that they was some men sunk with the ship and they was all N. C. O. officers except one sailor and of course the ship sunk so quick that some of the corporals and sargents didn't have no time to get off on acct. of haveing to wait till the last. So you see that when you read the newspapers you don't get all the dope because they don't tell the reporters only what they feel like telling them.

Well Al I guess I told you all ready about me haveing this hunch that I wouldn't never see France and I guess it looks now more then ever like my hunch was right because if we get hit I will have to kind of look out for the boys that's in my boat and not think about myself till everybody else is O. K. and Doran says if this ship ever does get hit it will sink quick because its so big and heavy and of course the heavier a ship is it will sink all the sooner and Doran says he knows they are laying for us because he has made five trips over and back on this ship and he never was on a trip when a sub didn't get after them.

Well I will close for this time because I am not feeling very good Al and it isn't nothing I eat or like that but its just I feel kind of faint like I use to sometimes when I would pitch a tough game in St. Louis when it was hot or something.

Your pal, JACK.

FRIEND AL: Well I all ready wrote you one letter today but I kind of feel like I better write to you again because any minute we are libel to hear a bang against the side of the boat and you know what that means and I have got a hunch that I won't never get off of the ship alive but will go down with her because I wouldn't never leave the ship as long as they was anybody left on her rules or no rules but I would stay and help out till every man was off and then of course it would be to late but any way I would go down feeling like I had done my duty. Well Al when a man has got a hunch like that he would be a sucker to not pay no tension to it and that is why I am writeing to you again because I got some things I want to say before the end.

Now old pal I know that Florrie hasn't never warmed up towards you and Bertha and wouldn't never go down to Bedford with me and pay you a visit and every time I ever give her a hint that I would like to have you and Bertha come up and see us she always had some excuse that she was going to be busy or this and that and of course I knew she was trying to alibi herself and the truth was she always felt like Bertha and her wouldn't have nothing in common you might say because Florrie has always been a swell dresser and cared a whole lot about how she looked and some way she felt like Bertha wouldn't feel comfortable around where she was at and maybe she was right but we can forget all that now Al and I can say one thing Al she never said nothing reflecting on you yourself in any way because I wouldn't of stood for it but instead of that when I showed her that picture of you and Bertha in your wedding suit she made the remark that you looked like one of the honest homely kind of people that their friends could always depend on them. Well Al when she said that she hit the nail on the head and I always knew you was the one pal who I could depend on and I am depending on you now and I know that if I am laying down at the bottom of the ocean tonight you will see that my wishs in this letter is carried out to the letter.

What I want to say is about Florrie and little Al. Now don't think Al that I am going to ask you for financial assistants because I would know better then that and besides we don't need it on acct. of me having 000 dollars soldier insurence in Florrie's name as the benefitter and the way she is coining money in that beauty parlor she won't need to touch my insurence but save it for little Al for a rainy day only I suppose that the minute she gets her hands on it she will blow it for widows weeds and I bet they will be some weeds Al and everybody will think they are flowers instead of weeds.

But what I am getting at is that she won't need no money because with what I leave her and what she can make she has got enough and more then enough but I often say that money isn't the only thing in this world and they's a whole lot of things pretty near as good and one of them is kindness and what I am asking from you and Bertha is to drop in on her once in a while up in Chi and pay her a visit and I have all ready wrote her a letter telling her to ask you but even if she don't ask you go and see her any way and see how she is getting along and if she is takeing good care of the kid or leaving him with the Swede nurse all the while.

Between you and I Al what I am scared of most is that Florrie's mind will be effected if anything happens to me and without knowing what she was doing she would probably take the first man that asked her and believe me she is not the kind that would have to wait around on no st. corner to catch somebody's eye but they would follow her around and nag at her till she married them and I would feel like he--ll over it because Florrie is the kind of a girl that has got to be handled right and not only that but what would become of little Al with some horse Dr. for a father in law and probably this bird would treat him like a dog and beat him up either that or make a sissy out of him.

Well Al old pal I know you will do like I ask and go and see her and maybe you better go alone but if you do take Bertha along I guess it would be better and not let Bertha say nothing to her because Florrie is the kind that flare up easy and specially when they think they are a little better then somebody. But if you could just drop her a hint and say that she should ought to be proud to be a widow to a husband that died for Uncle Sam and she ought to live for my memory and for little Al and try and make him as much like I as possible I believe it would make her think and any way I want you to do it for me old pal.

Well good by old pal and I wished I could leave some thing to you and Bertha and believe me I would if I had ever known this was comeing off this way though of course I figured right along that I wouldn't last long in France because what chance has a corporal got? But I figured I would make some arrangements for a little present for you and Bertha as soon as I got to France but of course it looks now like I wouldn't never get there and all the money I have got is tied up so its to late to think of that and all as I can say is good luck to you and Bertha and everybody in Bedford and I hope they will be proud of me and remember I done my best and I often say what more can a man do then that?

Well Al I will say good by again and good luck and now have got to quit and go to chow.

Your pal to the last, JACK KEEFE.

FRIEND AL: Well this has been some day and wait till you hear about it and hear what come off and some of the birds on this ship took me for a sucker and tried to make a rummy out of me but I was wise to their game and I guess the shoe is on the other foot this time.

Well it was early this A. M. and I couldn't sleep and I was up on deck and along come one of them French officers that's been on board all the way over. Well I thought I would try myself out on him like Lee said he done so I give him a salute and I said to him "Schones tag nicht wahr." Like you would say its a beautiful day only I thought I was saying it in French but wait till you hear about it Al.

Well Al they ain't nobody in the world fast enough to of caught what he said back to me and I won't never know what he said but I won't never forget how he looked at me and when I took one look at him I seen we wasn't going to get along very good so I turned around and started up the deck. Well he must of flagged the first man he seen and sent him after me and it was a 2d. lieut. and he come running up to me and stopped me and asked me what was my name and what Co. and etc. and at first I was going to stall and then I thought I better not so I told him who I was and he left me go.

Well I didn't know then what was comeing off so I just layed low and I didn't have to wait around long and all of a sudden a bird from the Colonel's staff found me in the parlor and says I was wanted right away and when I got to this room there was the Col. and the two Frenchmans and my captain Capt. Seeley and a couple others so I saluted and I can't tell you exactly what come off because I can't remember all what the Colonel said but it was something like this.

In the first place he says "Corporal Keefe they's some little matters that you have got to explain and we was going to pass them up first on the grounds that Capt. Seeley said you probably didn't know no better but this thing that come off this A. M. can't be explained by ignorants."

So then he says "It was reported that you was standing on deck the night before last and you made the remark that we had a he--ll of a censor ship." And he says "What did you mean by that?"

So you see Al this smart alex of a Lee had told me they called the first ship the censor ship and I believed him at first because I was thinking about something else or of course I never would of believed him because the censor ship isn't no ship like this kind of a ship but means something else. So I explained about that and I seen Capt. Seeley kind of crack a smile so then I knew I was O. K.

So then he pulled it on me about speaking to Capt. Somebody of the French army in the German language and of course they was only one answer to that and you see the way it was Al all the time Smith was pretending to learn us French he was learning us German and Lee put him up to it but when the Colonel asked me what I meant by doing such a thing as talk German why of course I knew in a minute that they had been trying to kid me but at first I told the Colonel I couldn't of said no German because I don't know no more German than Silk O'Loughlin. Well the Frenchman was pretty sore and I don't know what would of came off only for Capt. Seeley and he spoke up and said to the Colonel that if he could have a few minutes to investigate he thought he could clear things up because he figured I hadn't intended to do nothing wrong and somebody had probably been playing jokes.

So Capt. Seeley went out and it seemed like a couple of yrs. till he came back and he had Smith and Lee and Doran with him. So then them 3 birds was up on the carpet and I'll say they got some panning and when it was all over the Colonel said something about they being a dam site to much kidding back and fourth going on and he hoped that before long we would find out that this war wasn't no practicle joke and he give Lee and Smith a fierce balling out and he said he would leave Capt. Seeley to deal with them and he would report Doran to the proper quarters and then he was back on me again and he said it looked like I had been the innocent victim of a practicle joke but he says "You are so dam innocent that I figure you are temperately unfit to hold on to a corporal's warrant so you can consider yourself reduced to the ranks. We can't have no corporals that if some comedian told them the Germans was now one of our allies they would try and get in the German trenches and shake hands with them."

Well Al when it was all over I couldn't hardly keep from laughing because you see I come out of it O. K. and the laugh was on Smith and Lee and Doran because I got just what I wanted because I never did want to be a corporal because it meant I couldn't pal around with the boys and be their pals and I never felt right when I was giveing them orders because I would rather be just one of them and make them feel like we were all equals.

Of course they wasn't no time on the whole trip when Lee or Doran or Smith either one of them had me fooled because just to look at them you would know they are the kind of smart alex that's always trying to put something over on somebody only I figured two could play at that game as good as one and I would kid them right back and give them as good as they sent because I always figure that the game ain't over till the ninth inning and the man that does the laughing then has got all the best of it. But at that I don't bear no bad will towards neither one of them and I have got a good notion to ask Capt. Seeley to let them off easy.

Well Al this is a long letter but I wanted you to know I wasn't no corporal no more and if a sub hits us now Al I can hop into a boat as quick as I feel like it but jokeing a side if something like that happened it wouldn't make no difference to me if I was a corporal or not a corporal because I am a man and I would do my best and help the rest of the boys get into the boats before I thought about myself.

Your pal, JACK.

FRIEND AL: Well old pal just a line to let you know we are out of the danger zone and pretty near in port and I can't tell you where we land at but everybody is hollering and the band's playing and I guess the boys feels a whole lot better then when we was out there where the subs could get at us but between you and I Al I never thought about the subs all the way over only when I heard somebody else talk about them because I always figure that if they's some danger of that kind the best way to do is just forget it and if its going to happen all right but what's the use of worrying about it? But I suppose lots of people is built different and they have just got to worry all the while and they get scared stiff just thinking about what might happen but I always say nobody ever got fat worrying so why not just forget it and take things as they come.

Well old pal they's to many sights to see so I will quit for this time.

Your pal, JACK.

FRIEND AL: Well old pal here we are and its against the rules to tell you where we are at but of course it don't take no Shylock to find out because all you would have to do is look at the post mark that they will put on this letter.

Any way you couldn't pronounce what the town's name is if you seen it spelled out because it isn't nothing like how its spelled out and you won't catch me trying to pronounce none of these names or talk French because I am off of languages for a while and good old American is good enough for me eh Al?

Well Al now that its all over I guess we was pretty lucky to get across the old pond without no trouble because between you and I Al I heard just a little while ago from one of the boys that three nights ago we was attacked and our ship just missed getting hit by a periscope and the destroyers went after the subs and they was a whole flock of them and the reason we didn't hear nothing is that the death bombs don't go off till they are way under water so you can't hear them but between you and I Al the navy men say they was nine subs sank.

Well I didn't say nothing about it to the man who tipped me off but I had a hunch that night that something was going on and I don't remember now if it was something I heard or what it was but I knew they was something in the air and I was expecting every minute that the signal would come for us to take to the boats but they wasn't no necessity of that because the destroyers worked so fast and besides they say they don't never give no alarm till the last minute because they don't want to get everybody up at night for nothing.

Well any way its all over now and here we are and you ought to of heard the people in the town here cheer us when we come in and you ought to see how the girls look at us and believe me Al they are some girls. Its a good thing I am an old married man or I believe I would pretty near be tempted to flirt back with some of the ones that's been trying to get my eye but the way it is I just give them a smile and pass on and they's no harm in that and I figure a man always ought to give other people as much pleasure as you can as long as it don't harm nobody.

Well Al everybody's busier then a chicken with their head off and I haven't got no more time to write. But when we get to where we are going I will have time maybe and tell you how we are getting along and if you want drop me a line and I wish you would send me the Chi papers once in a while especially when the baseball training trips starts but maybe they won't be no Jack Keefe to send them to by that time but if they do get me I will die fighting. You know me Al.

Your pal, JACK.

PRIVATE VALENTINE

FRIEND AL: Well Al here I am only I can't tell you where its at because the censor rubs it out when you put down the name of a town and besides that even if I was to write out where we are at you wouldn't have no idear where its at because how you spell them hasn't nothing to do with their name if you tried to say it.

For inst. they's a town a little ways from us that when you say it its Lucy like a gal or something but when you come to spell it out its Loucey like something else.

Well Al any way this is where they have got us staying till we get called up to the front and I can't hardly wait till that comes off and some say it may be tomorrow and others say we are libel to be here a yr. Well I hope they are wrong because I would rather live in the trenches then one of these billets where they got us and between you and I Al its nothing more then a barn. Just think of a man like I Al thats been use to nothing only the best hotels in the big league and now they got me staying in a barn like I was a horse or something and I use to think I was cold when they had us sleeping with imaginery blankets out to Camp Grant but I would prespire if I was there now after this and when we get through here they can send us up to the north pole in our undershirt and we would half to keep moping the sweat off of our forehead and set under a electric fan to keep from sweltering.

Well they have got us pegged as horses all right not only because they give us a barn to live in but also from the way they sent us here from where we landed at in France and we made the trip in cattle cars and 1 of the boys says they must of got us mixed up with the calvary or something. It certainly was some experience to be rideing on one of these French trains for a man that went back and fourth to the different towns in the big league and back in a special Pullman and sometimes 2 of them so as we could all have lower births. Well we didn't have no births on the French R. R. and it wouldn't of done us no good to of had them because you wouldn't no sooner dose off when the engine would let off a screem that sounded like a woman that seen a snake and 1 of the boys says that on acct. of all the men being in the army they had women doing the men's work and judgeing by the noise they even had them whistleing for the crossings.

Well we finely got here any way and they signed us to our different billets and they's 20 of us in this one not counting a couple of pigs and god knows how many rats and a cow that mews all night. We haven't done nothing yet only look around but Monday we go to work out to the training grounds and they say we won't only half to march 12 miles through the mud and snow to get there. Mean time we set and look out the cracks onto Main St. and every little wile they's a Co. of pollutes marchs through or a train of motor Lauras takeing stuff up to the front or bringing guys back that didn't duck quick enough and to see these Frenchmens march you would think it was fun but when they have been at it a wile they will loose some of their pep.

Well its warmer in bed then setting here writeing so I will close for this time.

Your pal, JACK.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I am writeing this in the Y. M. C. A. hut where they try and keep it warm and all the boys that can crowd in spends most of their spare time here but we don't have much spare time at that because its always one thing another and I guess its just as well they keep us busy because every time they find out you are not doing nothing they begin vaxinating everybody.

They's enough noise in here so as a man can't hear yourself think let alone writeing a letter so if I make mistakes in spelling and etc. in this letter you will know why it is. They are singing the song now about the baby's prayer at twilight where the little girl is supposed to be praying for her daddy that's a soldier to take care of himself but if she was here now she would be praying for him to shut up his noise.

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